Issa to introduce immigration bill

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States, he said in an interview Wednesday.

Issa, an influential Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, described the legislation as a “come-from-the-shadows” effort that would allow the government to do a full accounting of those who are in the U.S. illegally. Immigrants in this new status would be able to travel to their native country while on this temporary visa, he said.

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“It’s halfway – and it always has been – halfway between full amnesty and simply rejecting people,” Issa told POLITICO on Wednesday. “I think if we’re going to break this logjam that’s occurred for my whole 13 years I’ve been in Congress, we have to find middle ground.”

Issa’s legislation would be the first bill this year released from House Republicans to provide legalization for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants. Still, immigration reform faces an uphill battle in the GOP-led House, where conservatives are resisting the type of sweeping reforms that passed the Democratic-led Senate in June.

Issa’s forthcoming legislation takes elements from similar legislation he introduced in December 2003, the Alien Accountability Act. The six-year period is intended to whittle down the undocumented immigrant population into several categories, such as immigrants with family ties to U.S. citizens or immigrants who want to participate in a guest-worker program.

Bringing undocumented immigrants out “of the shadows” would also help the government identify undocumented immigrants with a criminal background, who would be deported from the United States, Issa said.

“If somebody has a nexus that would reasonably allow them to become permanent residents and American citizen, we should allow them to do that,” Issa said. He added: “Our view is that long before six years, people would be in those categories heading toward some other pathway, in a guest worker program, or of course, have left the country.”

The lawmaker added that he was in talks with a “number” of other lawmakers to sign on to the legislation, but declined to provide names. Issa has also written a bill aimed at increasing the number of high-skilled immigrants to the country, which passed the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

A spokeswoman for the Judiciary Committee did not respond as to whether the panel’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, will schedule the bill to be marked up.

At an immigration forum on Wednesday, other rank-and-file Republican lawmakers who could be vital to the reform effort in the House signaled some headway on other immigration measures that have been discussed but have yet to be introduced.